


I'm A Little Bit Home, But I'm Not There Yet

by spockandawe



Series: Let Me Hold My Broken Parts [2]
Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: Body Horror, Developing Relationship, Ghosts, Hurt/Comfort, Infection, M/M, Near Death, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, Serious Injuries, Teleportation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-13
Updated: 2017-02-13
Packaged: 2018-09-23 23:53:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9688673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spockandawe/pseuds/spockandawe
Summary: The first thing you realize is— Wait. What should you be realizing? You’re lost, but you don’t know why. You don’t remember— You don’t recognize where you are. You think you don’t. This isn’t where you should be now. But why is this wrong? Where are you supposed to be?You can’t feel your hands. Or your feet. That’s an improvement, you catch yourself thinking— But hold on. Why is that an improvement? Isn’t that bad? That sounds like it should be bad. Your optics are online. You’re awake. You can just look at your hands, can’t you? But you don’t remember how to turn your head, you don’t remember how tomove—But you lose that thought as your processor catches up.Galvatron.And Soundwave. Mostly Galvatron. You went off with him to, to. To whatever that planet was. With the aliens. Oh. That’s right.Teleporting.That’s the thing you were doing. Ha.Obviously.





	

The first thing you realize is— Wait. What should you be realizing? You’re lost, but you don’t know why. You don’t remember— You don’t recognize where you are. You think you don’t. This isn’t where you should be now. But why is this wrong? Where are you supposed to be?

You can’t feel your hands. Or your feet. That’s an improvement, you catch yourself thinking— But hold on. Why is that an improvement? Isn’t that bad? That sounds like it should be bad. Your optics are online. You’re awake. You can just look at your hands, can’t you? But you don’t remember how to turn your head, you don’t remember how to _move—_

But you lose that thought as your processor catches up. Galvatron. And Soundwave. Mostly Galvatron. You went off with him to, to. To whatever that planet was. With the aliens. _Oh._ That’s right. _Teleporting._ That’s the thing you were doing. Ha. Obviously.

So, uh. What were you teleporting for? You’re trying to remember what your orders are and you aren’t coming up with any answers. You think you maybe were supposed to be teleporting… someone else? Who? Did you lose them? You woke up—if that’s what it was—disoriented, and it’s not getting any better. You don’t have your sense of _where you are,_ and it’s as bad as having your optics deactivated. You can’t tell where you are, but even worse, you can’t tell where you’ve _been_ , and it means you don’t have any way to get back. And on top of that, you’re trying as hard as you can not to think about the way you still can’t feel your hands— _frag—_

You aren’t panicking. Because you _don’t_ panic.

It’s still a relief to have something else to focus on when you hear, “What are you doing here?”

You turn around— But you think you only manage to do it because it happens too fast to try to remember _how_ to do do it, and now you can’t move again. At all. Don’t focus on that, don’t think too hard, the idea of being frozen— Don’t think about it. “Bumblebee.”

“Skywarp,” he says.

And he’s moving just fine. He steps forward, looking you up and down. There’s, there’s something strange about the way he moves. You can’t put your finger on it, and the more you try to focus and _think,_ the less you’re able to work your optics, and Bumblebee is already stepping off around you, out of your field of vision, and you can’t turn to follow him—

Bumblebee says, “So how’d they get you?”

You grab onto that as something much better to think about than _why can’t you move_ , but. That doesn’t make any sense either, _nothing_ makes sense. All you manage is, “What?”

Bumblebee leans back around in front of you. “You were on Earth, weren’t you? Pretty sure I would have gotten an earful if you’d been on one of the ships coming in, so. Who took you out? Optimus Prime? It doesn’t seem like Soundwave’s style. Or did Galvatron finally go off on his own people?”

Ages late, your processor catches up. “But you’re _dead._ ”

“Fast on the uptake, are you? Don’t worry, I hear everyone tries it once. So. Who got you?”

Your head is spinning. You can’t move, you can’t think, you, you don’t—

“Skywarp?”

“I’m _not_ dead. I’m. Alive. On Earth. What did you do to me??”

“Do to you?” He bends in closer. “This is Cybertron. Right outside of Iacon. And I’m just the lucky mech who happened to stumble across you.”

“But I— I _am_ on Earth. I was just. I’m on Earth, I’m not dead—”

He lifts his hands. “Okay, okay. Any thoughts on why you’re… not looking so complete?”

He glances down at your arm, and finally you manage to turn your head to follow his optics. And immediately wish you hadn’t because right above your elbow, your arm just. Stops _._

It’s— frag, you’re trying to tell yourself it’s just like, like the other times you’ve had troubles with staying solid, until— Until what? You almost had the memory locked down until you thought too hard about it. But you were always _there_ the same amount all over. Never missing part of yourself. It’s. Not even the same as losing an arm, you’ve lost limbs before, and this is worse, part of you is _somewhere else_ , and you still can’t feel where you are, or where the rest of you is, and you can see your leg just— stopping the same way. Your optics are starting to glitch out, you don’t know _what_ your spark is doing, but the worst part of it is the, the same thing it’s been for months, the way you _still can’t move—_

“Whoa, hey,” says Bumblebee. It sounds like it’s coming from half a planet away. “Calm, _calm.”_

There are hands on you, but you can’t even figure out how to tell him to frag off. Your feet aren’t there, your hands, your _wings,_ you can’t transform, can’t _move_ , you can’t tell whether your chest is about to explode or collapse in on itself, your optics are online but you can’t tell what you’re seeing—

It takes a klik to realize you’ve gone horizontal and it isn’t just your optics glitching out. It’s a little easier when there isn’t anything to see but sky. And by a little better, you mean you think you might not be about to die right that very moment. Maybe. Bumblebee’s hands are still on your frame, and you see him bend over you to look down at your face. You try to struggle upright, and you’re starting to get somewhere, but he leans down on your shoulders and keeps you pinned where you are. That shouldn’t work. You’re twice his size. None of this makes any sense _._

“Wh—” You try again. “How? Why can’t—?” You can’t manage anything else. Your chest is burning up from the inside out, and your head won’t stop _spinning_.

He seems to understand, at least. You think he shrugs. “Physics… isn’t so much a thing, when we’re like this, as far as I can tell. You make it up as you go. You’ll get the hang of it.” He pauses. “Primus knows what’s going to happen when there’s two of us making the rules up. Guess we’ll figure it out.”

You tell him what you think about that. At some length. It’s something you can manage to concentrate on, at least.

Bumblebee doesn’t seem to really react to any of it. Your optics still aren’t focusing right, but you don’t think he looks intimidated. Or upset. Or anything. You’re running proper ventilations now, you can feel that much happening in your torso at least. That’s something. And— “What do you mean, ‘like this’?”

“Well…” He hesitates. “I’m dead. I’m here. And now you’re here. Put together the pieces.”

It sends your head off spinning again. You still don’t know what’s happening in your chest, but it _hurts._ What’s happening, _what is happening—_ “I’m not dead. I’m not. I’m alive. I’m still alive, I’m not dead, I’m _not_ —”

“Hey now,” he says. There are hands on your face. It gives you something to think about that isn’t— You force your optics to focus on his face, and wish you hadn’t. More than anything, his expression looks _pitying_.

“I’d remember,” you manage, trying to force yourself calm. “If I was. If I’d died. I’d remember getting killed.”

Bumblebee’s hands don’t move. He says, “Sure, if you saw it coming. It might not have been a fight. All the reports coming back said you were in pretty rough shape.”

“I’m _not_ dead,” you repeat. “They fixed me up.”

“Who fixed you up?”

You open your mouth. Nothing comes out. You don’t have a clue where that statement even came from, but now that you’ve said it, you’re absolutely certain it’s _true._

“Soundwave? Galvatron?”

“...Yes?” You don’t know, and the more you chase the memory, the less certain you are.

Bumblebee’s hands leave your face, but not your frame. You still can’t figure out how to move, but you can feel his hands drifting down to your chestplate, and out towards your shoulders. He says, “So I guess it’s no good asking how they fixed you up.”

Yeah, you— You’ve got nothing. You settle for glaring at him.

He sighs. “You’re an even bigger mess than Starscream.”

“ _The frag did you just say?”_ You try to fight your way upright again, and you’re getting somewhere _—_ until he leans on your shoulders and pins you again. It doesn’t even look like he’s trying.

And now that you’re thinking about moving, you can’t do it. _Again_. And you can’t tell what that expression on Bumblebee’s face is supposed to mean.

“I’ll tell you what,” he says. “Next time I see him, I’ll compare him to you, and I’ll tell you all about the explosion _that_ causes. Deal?”

You don’t know what you’re supposed to say to that. It should be funny, it should, but you can't even focus on how hilarious it is to torque Starscream off. When you open your mouth, what comes out is, “Why can’t I move?”

He hesitates. You can feel his fingers tapping on your shoulders. Finally, he says, “You can move. You’ve done it a couple times now.”

“But I can’t—”

“Remember what I said before? We’re making up physics as we go. I can’t say for sure, I’ve only had _me_ as a test subject— But I think that the harder you concentrate on something, the harder it is to make it happen.”

You’re not following.

You look blankly up at him as he watches you, until he sighs and tries again. “Do you ever start thinking about how your servos really work, at the most basic level, how you actuate a single servo, and suddenly your processor locks up and you don’t remember how to walk anymore?”

 _Oh._ Yes. You still say, “No.”

“Watch out, or I’ll keep comparing you to Starscream,” he says. “You’re making this way too easy for me.” Before you can get properly offended, he continues, “It’s not just moving, either. I’m dead, I don’t have a body. And you’re—”

“ _Not dead.”_

“Not dead, fine. But you don’t have your real body here either. However much of you shows up— Primus, this is hard to describe. It isn’t conscious. You’ve had more and less body while we’ve been talking. You were gone up to the waist earlier, I don’t know if you could tell—”

You manage to turn your head to look at your arm—probably because you didn’t stop to think about it, you guess—until Bumblebee gets his hand on your cheek and firmly turns your head back to face him. Every time you’ve managed to move, he stops you. _Every. Time._

“Don’t,” he says. “You don’t want to be thinking about it too hard until you’ve got the hang of it. Trust me.”

Too late, you’re already thinking about plenty. At least when things were going haywire before, you could feel when your body was starting to go, and all of you was slipping in and out together. Thinking about parts of you phasing in and out without you even being able to tell it’s happening, that’s the worst thing yet, and now you can’t _stop_ thinking about it—

“Easy, easy.” Bumblebee says. “It just takes some time.”

“What, so you’re some kind of expert?”

He sighs. Again. “No, I’m just the lucky mech who got to try figuring this all out solo. You’re the lucky mech—sincere lucky that time, not sarcastic—who gets _help_ figuring it out, and infinitely more assistance than I had.”

You try to turn to look down at your arm again. And Bumblebee stops you again.

“Seriously,” he says. “You don’t want to look at that kind of thing for too long.”

“So, so what, I’m supposed to just lie here and pretend like nothing’s wrong and wait for my arms to magically reappear?”

“No, you’re supposed to stop fighting and _listen to me_ for two nanokliks. So then I can take a break from stopping you from getting yourself upset. And then I can get busy _helping you._ ”

You don’t know how you’re supposed to respond to that. Any of that. He moves around to your side, and you feel his hands settle on your shoulder, moving slowly down out along your arm. Eventually you settle on, “Why?”

He gives you an odd look. “Why not?”

That’s so obvious you can’t believe it’s even a question. You start to give him the obvious answer, but he cuts you off before you can even start.

“Don’t even go into that faction slag. I’m dead _._ I don’t care anymore. I give up, I don't care. I spend my time trying to save self-destructive idiots from themselves, apparently. I wouldn’t be spending months trying to talk the smallest bit of sense into Starscream if I wanted to waste my time being hung up on being an _Autobot._ What, was I supposed to, just sit there and watch you panic?”

“Wasn’t panicking,” you mumble.

“And now let’s imagine I made another unfavorable comparison to Starscream, you got offended, and we moved on. I was running low on patience for this kind of thing when I was alive, so you can imagine how low my patience reserves are by this point.”

You might be sulking. And you don’t want to let on, because that just makes you think about Starscream, again, because that’s always been _his_ thing, and you don’t want to keep being reminded of all the way’s you’re apparently similar. Not after… everything.

Bumblebee is just— doing something with your arm. Touching it? You guess? You can’t tell. You think about moving your head before you actually try moving your head. So of course you can’t make your neck work to actually look at whatever he’s doing. And even if you could, Bumblebee would just probably stop you again. For whatever reason.

But you have been staring at the sky for forever (still as boring as it was the first nanoklik), and you can’t move around or _anything_ to burn some energy, and if this goes on much longer, you think you’re going to go crazy.

So finally, you give up and ask, “What are you doing?”

“Tactile stimulation.”

Whatever that even means, it sounds like something you don’t want an _Autobot_ doing to you. “How about words that actually go together??”

“Take a look at this.” He holds up your arm.

And— you _have_ an arm. You can see his face through your hand, which is. Not your favorite. But your arm is there again, and that is a huge improvement on how the whole rest of your day has been going. Plus your hand is getting more opaque as you watch. Definitely an improvement.

“How—?”

“Tactile stimulation,” he repeats. It makes as little sense as the it did the first time. He glances at your face and tries again. “So when I’m touching, say, your shoulder. It reminds you of your arm, kind of. Because your arm is right there. And then when I touch your arm, you remember parts from lower down your arm. When I touch your wrist you remember your hand. And then, here we are.” He takes your fingers in his hand and moves them back and forth. “You have an arm again.”

On the one hand, it would be great to believe it’s that easy to get your body back. On the other hand— “...That sounds made up.”

“Sorry to disappoint, but you’re not going to find anyone with better answers. I’m not a doctor, I’m not a scientist. I’m just doing the best I can with what I’ve managed to figure out. Believe me, it’s a lot less fun trying to work all this out on your own, and not one hundred percent sure you’ll come back at all if you disappear all the way.”

“Still sounds fake,” you mutter.

He gives you a sharp look. “Are you trying to pick a fight? Insert even more comparisons to Starscream, because you’re making it so easy I'd feel embarrassed taking such an obvious potshot. And wow, would you look at that, I’m getting even more helpful and friendly, out of good old-fashioned spite.”

You stay stubbornly quiet while he finishes doing _whatever_ on your arm, and shifts down towards your legs. You do try to sit up to watch, but he puts his hand right on your face, pushing you back down.

“Just look at your nice new corporeal arm,” Bumblebee says. “For whatever value of ‘corporeal’ someone like us has.”

You don’t, because you’re trying to pay attention to whatever the frag it is he’s doing. You can feel his hands on your hip plating, and you can just manage to see the top of his head as he looks down at your legs. It’s only a few nanokliks before you feel his hands move down your legs. He pauses here and there, fingers tapping on the seams between your plates.

When his fingers slip behind your knee plating, you snap, _“Hey—”_ and even manage to nearly almost grab him before you can trick yourself out of it, however that’s been working. Your arm moves and everything, he’s just out of reach.

 _And_ he completely ignores you. You’re still struggling to sit up— which means you guess you need to… stop concentrating on sitting up? How does that even work? But before you can figure it out, his fingers are out of your joints, and his hands are moving down your shins.

This time you’re ready when his fingers dip inside your ankle joints, and manage not to jump.

Bumblebee mildly says, “Not going to try kicking me in the face?”

Well you _would,_ now that he’s put the thought in your head. But also, now that he’s said that, you’re concentrating too hard to move your legs. _Frag_. Did he do that on purpose? From the way he’s smirking, you bet he did.

Instead, you just go with, “Do you have to do that?”

“Now that’s an interesting question. Do any of us really _have_ to do anything? In a cosmic sense, what—if anything—is imperative?”

He pauses like he’s expecting an answer, and you don’t want to rise to the bait. His fingers are still inside your ankles, _still_ playing with your wires. But you don’t want to rise to the bait—

But before you give in and demand an answer, he gives it to you all on his own. “Far as I can tell, stronger physical sensations are more likely to get a stronger response. Like you’re accessing the memory of what your body feels like, I guess?”

“So do you actually know anything about this, or are you making it all up as you go along?”

“You’re experimental test subject number two, and you’re looking at test subject number one. Do you want me to go off and leave you to fend for yourself? Don’t answer that, it would be like asking me to abandon a three-legged turbofox puppy in the wilderness.” He looks pointedly at the space where your other arm should be. “Literally. Besides, watch this.”

He _pinches_ something in one ankle, and you kick him. Well you _try_ to kick him, and he dodges. But you did it! You might no be sure how, but it definitely happened.

He lifts one of your pedes and waggles it at you. “See? Two whole legs again. Aren’t you lucky?”

Before you can try kicking him again, he’s already moved on up to your second arm. But before he can get started, he looks across your body and hesitates. He says, “Pass me your arm.”

And— Oh. You manage that too. Maybe because you did it without thinking? Whatever, none of this makes any sense. But you’re finally starting to get the hang of this.

Those thoughts go right out of your head when you get a better look at your hand. Mostly that you don’t _have_ much of a hand anymore. You can still see a faint outline where your fingers should be, but it makes your fuel tank turn when you look at the spot where your hand just… _stops._

Bumblebee is watching your face. He says, “I did say you probably didn’t want to watch.”

You don’t get a chance to respond before he reaches into your wrist and tweaks a wire _hard,_ what the frag is his _problem_ —

But then you get to see your fingers fade back into existence. Huh. That’s. You don’t know how you feel about that.

“You’ll get the hang of it,” Bumblebee says. “Just like the moving. Trust me, if I’d had to count on someone to pull me back together, I wouldn’t be here now. I’m just speeding up the process.”

He drops your arm on your chest, and after a few false starts, you manage to not-think about moving it in just the right way to get it back resting at your side. Bumblebee is working his way down your arm, and you don’t think you’re imagining that he’s able to move along faster than he was at first.

After a klik, he says, “So. Didn’t want to say anything about it before you had a full set of limbs back. But do you know what’s going on with your ports?”

“...Ports?” He’s watching you closely. But you don’t know what he’s looking for. “Nothing’s going on with my ports.”

He doesn’t say anything for a few nanokliks after that. But when he reaches your fingers, he takes your hand in his and lifts it up, turning it to show you the underside of your arm. “You sure about that?”

It takes you a moment to process what you’re seeing. Because that—whatever is going on there, that does not look like _your arm_. You’ve taken plenty of damage in your time, you’re in a war, you’re on the front lines, you know what kind of things can happen to a body. But under your paneling, your arm is half rust, and you can see the damage going down deep, and your ports are barely recognizable anymore, so much of your frame has been eaten away. You want to void your tanks and your spark is flaring painful and hot, and you can’t look _away—_

Bumblebee moves your arm for you, out of your field of vision. And you shouldn’t look, you know you shouldn’t, but you just can’t help yourself— You turn to look at your other arm, but before you can get a decent view, Bumblebee puts his hand on your cheek and firmly turns your head back towards him.

“Trust me,” he says. “You’ll wish you hadn’t.”

Your head is spinning. You can’t ventilate, you can’t _think_. All you can manage is, “What did you _do_ to me?”

It’s stupid, you know it’s stupid the moment it comes out of your mouth, and thank Primus, Bumblebee doesn’t waste time telling you how stupid it is.

“Your whole body has been showing up the way from the start.” He shrugs. “Both arms, legs too. You don’t have any clue what’s up?”

You’re trying to remember, you really are. But everything is coming up blank, no matter how hard you try to remember—and there _has_ to be something that you should be remembering—you can’t think of what it might be. You shake your head.

Carefully, he says, “I know you said you didn’t think you were in a fight. But rust like this… If it’s this bad, it has to be in your fuel lines. If it’s gotten to your brain module, you might not have seen it coming—”

“ _I’m not dead,”_ you snap. Because on the one hand, you don’t want to believe it, you _refuse_ to believe it. But also you think you might be… right? You feel like there’s something out there still. Some version of you somewhere. Your body. You still can’t feel the connection, but you can feel the spot where the connection to your body should be. You still aren’t able to tell where you are, but you can’t shake the feeling that the information is there, you just haven’t found the right way to focus on it yet.

Bumblebee is still talking. “You said they ‘fixed you up.’ What were they fixing you from? How did they do it? Can you remember anything about that?”

You dim your optics, trying to concentrate. Bumblebee still hasn’t dropped your hand. Your fingers are curled around his, It’s kind of a relief, having something to think about that isn’t your rusted-out ports. And it’s the first time since you showed up here that you’ve touched anything yourself instead of just being touched.

Bumblebee prompts, “Were they fixing you up from some kind of damage?”

“Yes,” you say. “No. After I took that hit to the chest— Wait. My chest. My chest was patched. But I was having trouble. I was having trouble...”

Your voice trails off. You’re trying to put the pieces together, but you can’t _think._ Bumblebee moves to touch one of your ports, and you flinch and jerk away before you even know what you’re doing. You demand, “The frag is your _problem?”_

“Hurts?”

“ _Obviously._ ”

“Sorry, sorry,” he says. “Just trying to figure out how bad this is. You said you were having trouble. Was it trouble with teleporting?”

“Teleporting. I. Yes” It’s so hard trying to fight your way through this. It feels like you’re having to push through solid rock to remember even the littlest details. “I could teleport. I could move. But I couldn’t… exit the teleport. I couldn’t stay solid.”

“Sounds familiar,” Bumblebee says. “Aren’t you lucky, running into that situation twice in a row. Is that what they fixed for you?”

“Yes.” You think. Probably? Trying to get the details straight is like trying to grab smoke. And all your thoughts get derailed as Bumblebee shakes his hand free of yours and gets up. Your optics jolt online. _“Wait—”_

“Relax,” he says, as he kneels back down on your other side and picks up that hand. “You were starting to fade out on this side, so I’m dealing with the problem now instead of later. And not to lead you or anything. But would this fixing that happened maybe have something to do with lots of cables being plugged into lots of ports?”

“ _Yes.”_   You do remember this, you definitely do, there’s no question. That brings it all back, strung up in a mess of cables so much you could barely move, only getting out (kind of) when they needed you to teleport someone— That memory is bright and clear.

You watch Bumblebee holding your hand in his, turning your arm back and forth as he examines the ports. It’s easier to watch him than look at the damage yourself. He asks, “Any medics in that crew of yours? Actually, never mind, either you don’t have a medic, or the one you have is so incompetent he doesn’t deserve the job.”

You don’t really have anything to say to that. You can’t remember. But you really can’t disagree with his assessment.

“I’m guessing damage like this could only happen with long-term installation,” he adds.

“Weeks. Months? I don’t remember.” Your optics drift down from his face to your arm. It’s hard to not look at it.

He turns your arm so the damage faces away from you. You kind of want to demand that he let you see. But you’re also kind of grateful.

“And you’re sure you’re still alive?”

“ _Yes.”_ The more you think about it, the more positive you are. You can feel your body out there. It’s like it’s just out of reach, but you can tell it’s there. This isn’t when you just woke up and you couldn’t tell where the parts of you were at all, you don’t quite have it yet, but it’s _just_ past your fingertips.

Bumblebee pats your chestplate. “Well, the good news is that a lot of this confusion is probably down to the rust infection. The bad news is that this confusion is probably down to the rust infection.”

“I don’t—”

“Let’s assume you’re still alive. If someone on this planet knows about non-fatal out of body experiences, it’s probably you. I’m no doctor. But I don’t think you’re disoriented just because this whole mess is confusing. I’m thinking that the infection is starting to affect you.” He hesitates. “And again, can’t repeat this enough, I’m definitely no doctor. But if we assume you’re alive, and we assume it’s the infection doing this to you… It doesn’t look like things are improving with time. Kind of the opposite.”

It takes you a moment, but. “I’m going to die.”

“Maybe,” he says. He still has one of your hands captured, and his other hand is still resting on your chestplate. “Seems pretty likely.”

Your head is spinning again. But you don’t know if it’s the same confusion as before, or because you don’t want to be dead, you’re not _ready_ to be dead, and you don’t know how to stop it.

Bumblebee taps on your chest, and you try your hardest to focus on him. He says, “Your body’s on earth, as far as you know. We’re on Cybertron. You can’t teleport that far, can you?”

You shake your head. Definitely not.

He sighs. “I wish Wheeljack could listen in, he’s the one who knows about this kind of thing. But no matter what machines they have you hooked into, I’m pretty sure crossing that kind of distance isn’t doing good things to your spark.”

Before you can help yourself, you say, “What am I supposed to do?” You cringe. Did that _really_ just come out of your mouth.

Bumblebee’s mouth turns up at the corners. “Oh, _now_ you want to listen to my advice.” You open your mouth but he cuts you off. “Hush, I’ll drop it. Remember, not a doctor, not a scientist. But I think that one, you need to get out of here and back to your body. And two, you need to _get out_ of that rig they have you in as soon as you can. Whatever they were doing, a medic should be able to replicate. And a medic isn’t going to rust the brain out of your head.”

You don’t know what to say again. It’s pathetic. You can’t stop helplessly watching Bumblebee like he has all the answers.

“Come on.” He reaches up to pat your cheek. “First step: body. Can you tell where you need to be? I don’t know how this feels, it’s not exactly relevant to my non-life anymore. Can you tell where you’re coming from?”

“Maybe. Almost—” You dim your optics again. It’s like Bumblebee’s hand on your face is grounding you, which is good, because the rest of you sure doesn’t feel real. All the rest of you is free-floating and detached, except for where he has your hand in his, and his hand against your cheek. You can nearly feel it, you’re _so close_ , it’s like when you have to teleport someone else, and you go out-and-back, but you can’t remember going out and you still can’t tell exactly where _back_ is.

“You’ve got this,” Bumblebee says.

Even though you know the connection is right there and you’re fighting your hardest to make it, it still knocks you right out of the sky when it finally snaps into place. If you’d been on your pedes, you don’t think you would have stayed upright. As it is, Bumblebee’s hands are still there, keeping you steady.

It feels like you just got a missing limb back. Or maybe that’s the dumbest comparison you could have made, given how your day has gone. But it fills a giant _gap_ you hadn’t even realized was there, and you feel like you can maybe at least function again.

And now, yeah, you can feel the strain on your spark as a dull, hot ache in your chest. Even with a machine to boost you, you don’t know how this possible or how your body is able to handle it.

Bumblebee asks, “Got it?”

“Yeah,” you say distantly. And then a nanoklik later, you add, _“Ow.”_

He laughs once. “So if this hurts, don’t you think that maybe, possibly, you ought to go back?”

All you can do is helplessly look at him.

He nudges you in the side with his knee. “Go on. Back in your body, out of the rig, get your aft to a medic. Easy steps. You aren’t going to be able to do any of them if you let your spark burn out here.”

He’s— right. Obviously, he’s right. And you do want to go. You don’t want to _stay._ But you also don’t exactly want to go… alone.

Instead of lingering on that thought, you dim your optics and let yourself slide into the connection.

It’s a disorienting whirl, worse than any teleport you’ve ever done, but you can feel the weight of your body as you sag forward in the rig, and you can feel the ache as the cables pull at your ports. It takes you a couple tries to focus your optics, but you can see the same stained metal floor you’ve been staring at every day for forever. You try to tug your hands free of the cables, but have to stop at the jolt of pain that sends down your arms.

The room is empty, you don’t even get an answer from the hallway outside when you ask if anyone’s there. You pull against the cables again, but— _ow,_ frag, not happening. And you get a nasty, twisting feeling that if you do manage to pull free, the cables are going to take chunks of your frame with them. There’s still nobody around in the conference room, and you’re worse off than you thought, because you can’t even manage to properly project yourself out anymore, the little halfway-teleports you’ve been doing while you move other people around. You can’t even reach the other rooms in the base. You’re so dizzy when you try to think that it takes you a klik to work through your systems to just find your own comms, but you do eventually manage.

SK: soundwvae  
SK: ttheres a problem  
SK: i cant

And that’s as far as you make it before your systems finally give out and your processor glitches all the way offline.

**Author's Note:**

> [Tumblr](http://spockandawe.tumblr.com/post/157177392536/im-a-little-bit-home-but-im-not-there-yet)
> 
>  
> 
> (Don't worry, he's still alive, just unconscious)


End file.
